January 10, 2023

Long Wait Times Deter Disability Applicants

Applying for federal disability benefits is a precarious situation for workers who were either forced, or have chosen, to quit their jobs due to an injury or chronic medical condition. There are no guarantees an application will be approved, and it can be hard to find a job after waiting months for a decision on whether they qualify for the benefits.

In new research documenting how long individuals wait for a decision on their initial disability applications to a Social Security Administration (SSA) field office, the average ranges from about seven to nine months.

The entire process can take twice as long if SSA denies the request for benefits and the applicant appeals within the agency or to an administrative law judge or federal court, the researchers found.

Wait times between the initial filing and resolving all appeals fluctuated quite a bit, at least during the study’s time period – 1996 through 2014 – but ended at a higher level than where they started. The waits in exurban and rural areas increased more than in urban areas.

Why does this matter? In addition to the burden on applicants of having to wait, long waits may be dissuading people from applying for disability. Counties that took longer to process applications and resolve all the appeals saw fewer applications the following year, the researchers found.

The impact of wait times on future applications provides preliminary “evidence of the importance of how SSA processing interacts with applicant behavior,” the researchers said.

The amount of time it takes to process an application can vary for all sorts of reasons. Certain severe medical conditions that are clearly disabling can speed things up. But submitting an incomplete application or applying to a particularly busy field office can lengthen the process. …Learn More

May 11, 2021

Psychology Added to CFP Certification

Financial advisers have no shortage of clever strategies to dispense to their clients. The tricky part is getting the psychology right.

Human beings have all kinds of hang-ups about money. Presumably, someone who’s walked into a financial adviser’s office has broken through the first barrier to getting help: denial. But even then, blind spots and fears can get in the way of a client choosing or executing a financial plan, even if it’s clearly beneficial.

To that end, psychology is being added to the educational curriculum – along with the longstanding topics like risk management, tax planning, and investing – required for advisers to get certification as a Certified Financial Planner, or CFP. 

Money “is a very emotional topic,” said John M. Loper, a CFP and director of professional practice on the CFP Board. That, he said, is a compelling reason for addressing clients’ psychological issues head-on: “If you can’t connect with your client, it’s going to be difficult for them to take your advice.”

The idea came out of feedback the CFP received in a 2019 study, but COVID-19 pushed the issue to the forefront, he said. The psychology curriculum will include managing crises, such as pandemics and stock market drops, that have severe financial consequences.

Wells Fargo’s Michael Liersch, who has a PhD in behavioral finance, said that giving financial advice is challenging because some people are uncomfortable even starting a conversation about money. In families, it’s often a point of contention between husbands and wives or parents and children. Talking about money risks exposes big differences in how it should be used, and the conversations can turn negative.

“People think it’ll be disruptive, so they don’t bring it up,” said Liersch, head of financial advice and planning for Wells Fargo. …Learn More

December 3, 2020

Woman with Dementia Gets Lots of Support

In the 3 1/2 years since Brenda Lugar was diagnosed with dementia due to Lewy body disease, she has found great comfort in the people who want to make her life a little easier.

This support takes many forms. At church on Sunday mornings, Shirley always reminds Lugar of her name. When Lugar is writing an email, she knows it’s okay to text her friend, Michele, or her sister-in-law, Janet, for help finding the right word. Lugar’s husband of 43 years, Robert Lugar, recently bought her a special board for Christmas so she has a place to work on her jigsaw puzzles – and he insisted she open it early and start enjoying it now.

“Just that little thing – it meant a lot,” she said in a recent interview.

It’s common for people who are grappling with the painful reality of a dementia diagnosis to deny their condition or hide it from others. But not Brenda. Asking for the support she needs – and getting it – is “soul cleansing,” she said.

Lugar, who is 62, didn’t arrive at this place immediately. When a neurologist at Duke University Medical Center diagnosed her, her initial reaction was denial. “I said, ‘Oh you can cure me.’ He said, ‘I can’t cure you but I can slow it,’ ” she said. “When he said that, I knew that wasn’t good. I kind of shut down.”

Lewy body disease is a condition in which abnormal protein deposits in the brain can cause dementia. For Lugar, disclosing her disease gives her an odd sense of relief – it’s an explanation to others for her memory loss, her intermittent hallucinations about animals, and her uneven performance at work. “I had to tell people, because I wasn’t the same person,” she said.

She even shared her condition with a store clerk to explain her fumbling with the credit card reader. “If I tell them [and] if they have any decency in them, they’ll treat me better,” she said.

Barbara Matchar, director of the Duke Dementia Family Support Program, which Lugar participates in, said that people like Lugar “who are open about their diagnosis often feel relieved.”

Lugar was diagnosed in 2017 after she noticed frightening things happening to her at work. …Learn More